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In 1968, Andrei
Sakharov braved censorship and personal risk in the Soviet Union to give
humanity an honest and timeless
declaration of conscience. That same year, Ethiopia's most prominent dissenter,
Eskinder Nega, was born. In January 1981, a year into Sakharov's exile in the
closed city of Gorky, Reeyot Alemu, another fierce, Ethiopian free thinker, was
born.

Nairobi, August 3, 2012--An appeals court in Addis
Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, has reduced a 14-year prison sentence given to journalist Reeyot Alemu in January to five years and dropped most of
the terrorism charges against her, according to local journalists.

Reeyot, a columnist for the independent weekly Feteh, was sentenced in January and fined 33,000 birrs (US$1,500) under Ethiopia's sweeping anti-terrorism law for planning and conspiring a terrorist act; possessing property for terrorist acts; and participating in the promotion or communication of a terrorist act, according to local journalists.